His point here is to talk about man versus machine and to then discuss the recent article in PLoS Biology on a "Darwinian Machine" which I wrote about previously. (I think he is also making a bit of a play on words with the hammerhead ribozyme, but I am not sure). Anyway, Ellignton's article is worth checking out. I especially like the ending

Machine-based continuous evolution should be the best of all worlds, combining man's mental ability to chart the future with automated control of selection stringency with the still unpredictable mode and tempo of evolution's relentless drive.

Figure from Ellington's PLoS Biology paper. I can put it here because it is a fully Open Access paper using a broad Creative Commons license. All I have to do is cite the source. And so I am. Andy Ellington. PLoS Biol 6(5): e132 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060132

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I'm a grad student in Andy's lab. I made that figure. It would be awful nice of you to associate my name with it since it took me about 10 hours to make and it turns out I'm going to make my living writing and making illustrations just like that one.

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Some disclosures that might be relevant to what I write about:1. I am involved with the Public Library of Science in multiple ways, and my brother was a co-founder. I receive no money from them (although in theory I can get compensated for expenses).2. My wife worked for Mendel Biotechnology many years ago and we still own a small amount of their stock.3. I make some money from sales of my Evolution textbook.

4. I am on the Scientific Advisory Board of uBiome and Symbiota for which I get some stock options.

5. I have received some research funding from the MARS Corporation (for work on dog microbiomes and plant microbiomes).